Friday, October 26th, 2012

I finally managed to set aside some time to bottle both banning (my wild blonde) as well as my turbid mash lambic that I had aged on local apricots.
- for a wild beer aged for over 14 months with multiple varieties of lacto, brett, and pedio, banning finished surprisingly high at 1.01, for an abv of 7.08%. it is deep gold in color with a complex funky aroma and an assertive farmhouse brett flavor with plenty of smooth acidity.
- I kegged five gallons, bottled another five with rockpile yeast as per my earlier method, and racked another two onto the leftover apricots in my 2.5 gallon better bottle once I had racked and bottled my lambic (to see how much flavor and aroma can be extracted from second use fruit).
- speaking of lambic – after six months on a pound and a half of apricots, two gallons of my original batch had dropped to a final gravity of 0.99(!) for an abv of 7.19%. upon examining my gravity sample I was greeted with the most amazing aroma I have ever experienced in all of my brewing days – fresh, ripe, sweet apricot melded perfectly with a background of complex earthy funk. the sample was a crystal clear pale gold with a clean acidity and subtle, complex funk and apricot. I can’t wait for this one to carb up for a special occasion, and will definitely be aging more of my sours (and especially my lambic) on fruit in the future.


Tags:apricot, banning, blonde, lambic, sour, wild
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Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

last weekend I finished up the last of my four “house” sours – cuvee de banning.
- after finishing my first “american-style” sour (cuvee de cabrillo), I decided to toss four “house” sours into my brewing pipeline, such that after a year’s time, a new year-aged sour would be available for bottling every three months. the pipeline is filled as follows:
- as noted above, banning is a sour blond ale inspired by various recipes for russian river’s temptation. the recipe is as follows (for 13 gals @ 80% efficiency):
-
26.00 lb |
Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) |
Grain |
94.55 % |
1.50 lb |
White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) |
Grain |
5.45 % |
3.00 oz |
Saaz [2.00 %] (60 min) |
Hops |
7.6 IBU |
0.50 oz |
Saaz [2.00 %] (30 min) |
Hops |
1.0 IBU |
0.50 oz |
Saaz [2.00 %] (5 min) |
Hops |
0.3 IBU |
- I used some of my stash of aged hops from seven bridges for a sub-10 IBU count and pitched a starter made from a vial of white labs WLP655 and dregs from bottles of RR’s consecration, two brothers’ askew, and drie fonteinen oude geuze. after 4-5 days, the starter had developed a healthy pellicle and was smelling pretty funky when I pitched it at 72F.
- I also had MV over and whipped up a batch of belgian blonde for his upcoming wedding, and he took home a bag of spent grains to make some dog treats. congrats MV, and enjoy the brew!


Tags:askew, consecration, cuvee de banning, dog treats, drie fonteinen, oude geuze, sour
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